TELLURIDE – “Yoga was originally designed as a customized, individualized practice, between one teacher and one student,” yogini Rebecca Mayer explains, as we sit over steaming cups of tea in my backyard one clear Sunday morning.
Already, this yoga class is worlds apart from the group class setting most recreational yoga students like me are accustomed to: Before we even roll out our mats for this private yoga class, Mayer asks what I really want to achieve through yoga. She asks the standard questions about any ailments or injuries, but goes further, inquiring about my overall physical and mental health, as my daily routines, and how I imagine fitting yoga into my everyday life.
As we talk, she explains that my responses will help her craft a customized personal practice, or sadhana, that fits into my regular day-to-day routine.
“There are just so many techniques, each of which is designed to do different things,” she says of the vast teachings of yoga, encompassing a myriad of different methods and systems. “And every person has a different constitution, and thus has different needs.”
Mayer has studied an array of tyoga methodologies in her travels around the world, bringing to the table a sprawling understanding of not just the physical poses that comprise a yoga practice, but also the more cerebral components that begin to address yoga’s deeper spiritual and psychological underpinnings.
As she describes it, the asana, or physical part of yoga, is only one element in yoga’s immense and ancient body of knowledge. “If you’re just doing the postures, you’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg,” she says, explaining that the inclusion of meditation, mantra (vocal tune resonance) and pranayama (breathing techniques) can help reap the full benefits of yoga.
Mayer came to yoga, like many, after years of athletics and other physical endeavors took their toll on her body. A regular yoga practice helped her achieve overall better health, not just physically, but mentally, as well.
“These techniques have been used for thousands of years with great success, not just in terms of improving a person’s physical well-being, but also in calming the mind, bringing clarity and focus and improving emotional imbalances,” Mayer says.
Mayer studied Tantric Integral Yoga at Ashram Yoga in New Zealand, where she became certified to teach. She taught yoga in Telluride for seven months, then returned to New Zealand to complete her next 300-hour training.
She then went on to study Ashtanga yoga in India with Rolf Neujokat, a close student of prominent Ashtanga teacher Pattabhi Jois and took courses in yoga philosophy with the well-known Narvada Puri, in Haridwar, India. She has also trained in the science of Ayurveda, Yoga Therapy and Thai Yoga Massage, and taught yoga at a meditation center near the famous Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia.
Mayer is classified as a 500 RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher with a minimum of 500 hours of yoga teacher training).
After returning to Telluride this spring, Mayer started Asha Yoga Therapies, a business devoted to sharing this style of therapeutic, holistic and customized yoga practice.
“When you begin to fit a personalized practice into your schedule, you really begin to see results,” she says, noting that the foundation of a solid yoga practice rests not in how much time one spends doing yoga, but rather how consistently. “You’ll notice you’re building more strength, and gaining more flexibility, but you might also notice that you feel more delight at the small things in life – and it’s the little effects like that that can really transform your way of being and approach to life,” Mayer says.
To learn more about Mayer and Telluride-based Asha Yoga Therapies, call 970/708-7115 or visit www.ashayogatherapies.com.
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